Northern Apex is the musings of a middle aged Alaskan as he strives to achieve his individual apex, or pinnacle, while balancing career and family.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Focus

The image to the left is a fractal, a visual representation of a mathematical expression. If there are any teachers reading this, you can find some great resources for teaching fractals to kids here.

This past week has been a hodge podge of unrelated stimuli and I could never grab just one item to focus on and blog about so I went a week without updating - not because I didn't want to, just because I couldn't imagine any one thing to be earth shattering enough to pass on.

Of course looking back now I can see my days were full of wonder if I had only stepped back and reflected. My Dad called me and we had a wonderful conversation for over 90 minutes. My niece called me from the hospital to tell me about her surgery, her life and her courage. The last one of my workers quit smoking creating a smoke-free environment from an office where everyone but me smoked 30 months ago. My brother and I miss each other deeply as we become reacquainted with mornings where the other is not there to share coffee and conversation; a dawning awareness that our absences define our relationship, not our yearly visits. The girls and I share a hockey game, one daughter following the action with a passion, her enthusiasm bursting forth, and the other daughter just happy to be there with her sister and Dad, resting her head on my shoulder and smiling. The days are down to nine hours now, and the windshield is always frosty. Work is . . . . more work than usual as I deal with the second visit from the owner this month, and the newly minted non-smokers are cranky. A house burns down two blocks away, a grim reminder of the fragile nature of "things". I chat on-line with my son's college roommates, mutual respect for Trevor underlying our kidding and posturing.

My week was full of amazing sights and sounds and experiences, all certainly blog-worthy, and all part of my road to the apex - I just couldn't see it at the time, I needed focus. I encourage you all to reflect back over the past week and see it for the wonderful journey that it represented- leave me a comment about the most significant moment of your week!

Whoa. Dad, I love that focus thingy. its hecka cool. man i cant belevie im 14 now. my birthday was the best. thanks for the gameboy micro. i think im spoled now. i had a lonly thanksgiving. me and kc both. it was our first thanksgiving with out mom. it all our lives the first time without mom. that sucks., well i have to go. i lvoe yea and cant wait till toamrrow.... love yea..... lydia

Hey dad that's cool everyone can leave post it notes on your site. You probaly wont read this one cause it seems like it as old post. Thought i would do it anyways. I see lydia loves to read it and leave notes thats awesome.love zack